ملف ٧٠٥/١٩١٦ الجزء ٢ "انتفاضة عربية: التقارير العربية؛ تقارير السير م. سايكس" [و‎‎١‎٩‎٢] (٤٥٠/٣٨١)

at Constantinople. This was a step towards the division of forces in Hejaz and the
lessening of the importance of the high functionaries installed at Mecca—the Vali and
the bhenf.
The moment came when the wish of the Sultan to instal a Sherif at Medina was
spo en of; a Sherif who was to be on the same footing as the Sherif of Mecca. And
t e name of a Sherif of the Zeid dynasty was mentioned in connection with the
new post.
Ihe limit was reached. The Sherif of Mecca had conformed to the wish of the
Forte m regard to the so-called modernisation of the administration of Hejaz by the
gradual introduction of administrative reforms to bring it into line with the other
vilayets, but they^ could never tolerate the cutting-up of the patrimony, simply
decorative though it ^ might be, which had been handed down by their ancestors for
close upon ten centuries. The people of Hejaz, on the other hand, who live solely on
the profits of the pilgrimage, combined with the charity of the Government and the
Islamic world, finding their interests injured by the actual state of war (which an
active propaganda could easily so explain to them as to incriminate the Young Turks
in their eyes), were disposed to accept any change which might procure a little more
ease for them or restore the means of existence which in part they have lost.
_ AH these intrigues centred in one man, originating with him or being either for or
against him ; and that man being a bold personnage like Sherif Hussein, what happened
was inevitable.
APPENDIX II.
Reasons for the Resignation of Khairi Effendi Shaykh-ul-Islam.
[Translation of an article published in the “ Akhbar-el-Hart ” (Algiers) of the 28th July,
1916.]
THE reasons which led, some time ago, to the resignations at Constantinople of
Shaykh-ul-Islam Khairi Efifendi, and the substitution of a Young Turk (devoted to the
Committee of Union and Progrbss), Moussa Kadhim Rey, are now known, Precise
information coming from a sure source explains the change, which was a consequence of
German intrigues.
In the religious circles of Constantinople some hostile feeling was shown in regard
to Germany, whose interference in the affairs of Turkey has been so disastrous to the
< )ttoman Empire. Outbursts in the religious schools placed under the direction of the
Shaykh-ul-Islam, in which hodjas and cadis are trained, left no doubt as to this.
Under German pressure, the Young Turks at the head of affairs decided that they
would not accept for administrative posts candidates from these establishments, but
would reserve the posts of hodja and cadi for pupils of lav schools founded by the Young
Turk Government under German direction.
The Ministry of Pious Foundations, in obedience to German agents, went so far
as to order the prosecution of the masters of religious instruction who had taken part
in meetings at which the “ goings-on ” of Germany in Turkey had given occasion for
strong protests.
Khairi Effendi did not fail to resist measures of this kind : German functionaries
then exacted the removal of religious instruction from the programme of the high schools
which provided for the education of officials, so as to withdraw their students from the
influence of the Shaykh-ul-Islam.
Other incidents sharpened the struggle between the Shaykh-ul-Islam and the
Young Turk Government. Several Moslems who had been arrested and prosecuted for
high treason for having preached against the Germans in the mosques were acquitted
by*the “ Mahakem-ch’eria ” ecclesiastical tribunals, before which they it ad been taken.
The German agents, profoundly annoyed with them, ordered the Young Turks in power
to lessen the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Courts ; and so it came about that in
Syria a certain number of hodjas who had been imprisoned for having spoken against
the Germans in the mosques were, in defiance of Moslem law, tried and sentenced to
death by the u Mahakem-Nidhamia.”
The Shaykh-ul-Islam worked energetically against these innovations; far from
paving attention to his protests, the Government decided that all lawsuits, other than
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